Two of a Kind
by Star Vortex
Summary: Short one-shot set near the end of Death Bringer. Can't really summarize without spoilers, so the summary's on the inside. Venture in if you dare.


Let's be clear. I think Valduggery is a little wrong. Even in Death Bringer, Valkyrie is just sixteen while Skulduggery is a five hundred year old skeleton. It just wouldn't work. But after finishing the sixth book, I wasn't quite sure what to think, and Derek is making it ever harder not to ship the two of them. Now that they're holding each other's big secrets, they're so alike that it is almost ludicrous. So I cheated. This is a Valduggery, but it does not contain anything truly romantic. This is just a quickie I whipped up about how I think Valkyrie would have reacted after Darquesse's fight with Vile, and is mostly a little fluzziness with Skul through the bond that they share. It takes place right after the fight with Vile. If you're a supporter of Valduggery, then think of it as romantic. If you don't, then don't. Interpret it however you wish. I will stop writing now.

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><p>The last of the guests had long since driven away, leaving the mansion in silence. The mess of decorations and trash had taken care of itself, and the great building was exactly as it had been since before… well, since before everything, really. The house had been this way since before she was born, and it would be this way long after she died.<p>

One foot in front of the other.

She walked slowly through the halls, eyes flickering over everything yet seeing nothing. She hadn't talked to him since they had gotten back, and she didn't know if she wanted to. Everyone had turned expectantly, and they had split up to survey the damage. She just hadn't known what to think of him. She still didn't. He must have spoken with Erskine and Ghastly about what had happened, lied to them about what had happened, because soon enough she was being showered with praise by whoever recognized her when she walked by. She had dipped her head and said thank you to the lot of them again and again, hiding behind a false smile that was earnest-looking enough to satisfy them. Or at least earnest enough for them to let her alone.

The door creaked open as she turned the knob and stepped into the parlor. She knew this room. This… this was where it had all begun, years before. God, was it just years? It felt like a lifetime.

The phone. She remembered the phone. She remembered the man that had called, looking for the key and the Scepter of the Ancients. He had asked for her name, broken in, attacked her, and then Skulduggery was there.

Valkyrie circled the table in front of the sofa. It was identical to the one he had broken in the fight for her defense. The window and door were fixed, too, making it impossible to tell that anything even remotely unusual had ever happened in this room. Skulduggery had been thorough in repairs. Or whoever he had paid had been.

There were logs in the fireplace, and Valkyrie snapped her fingers. She felt a spark, then tossed it into the hearth like a coin. Without a second thought she coaxed it to life, and in seconds the glittering bit of light became a roaring flame.

Magic. She gazed blankly at her handiwork. She had created it without even crossing the room. Such things were amazing, special, unreal, yet it was etched into her mind. Fire was nothing; a reflex.

She collapsed onto the sofa, staring into the fireplace. She remembered it all. All of it. But she didn't want to. She remembered the night carrying her, she remembered dying, breaking stone, fighting Vile. She remembered the Remnant that had been inside her, releasing Darquesse for the first time. She remembered killing seven sorcerers and returning to become Valkyrie. But above all she remembered Cassandra's smoke, revealing the destruction that Darquesse—she—would bring. _Whole cities leveled_, Finbar had said. That was the future for her; that was what she would do. And she could, she knew. She had been there, looked at a city and toyed with the idea of its total and utter annihilation. She had felt that power, glorious and terrible, intoxicating her with the knowledge that thousands of lives could be snuffed out upon her mere whim.

She choked.

She would kill her parents. She had seen it. Millions, no, billions would fall before her when she awoke for good. She would be chaos incarnate, evil at its purest.

She put her head in her hands as hot tears spilled from her eyes.

She had no hope anymore. All she could do was wait for the inevitable, and she hurt. She hurt for those still alive whose time would be cut short and whose blood would bathe her. She hurt for her parents, for little Alice. What about her? Would she die with them? Would she live to see her sister turn into what she was destined to? She could not change what would happen, and so she mourned for it. Tonight had somehow made it true. Tonight had somehow made it real.

She heard the door close, and didn't need to look up to see who it was.

His steps were slow, unsure how to approach a situation that even he had never foreseen, that they had never foreseen. When they had met for the first time, here, in this room, neither of them could have possibly predicted where it would take them. She had been the persistent little girl, he had been her dubious warden, and they had thought that it would end quickly when the business with Gordon' murder was over. She hadn't expected to become a sorcerer, and hadn't dreamed of how powerful she would grow. She hadn't expected to become a detective or crimefighter, and she hadn't expected to become Skulduggery's partner. She hadn't expected to become Darquesse.

He sat next to her on the sofa. His façade was down, and shadows danced in his eye sockets as he stared into the flames. Her imagination was twisting, displaying her worst nightmares in all their glory, and she knew that after tonight, his was doing the same. The fight had unlocked their worst qualities and given their inner evils physical form, and she was not the only one shaken.

She leaned into him as images of murder flashed before her, and he put up no protest as she buried her face in his shirt like a frightened child. Instead, he put his arms around her shoulders and hugged her close, and she knew he was doing it for himself as much as her. He knew her pain. And she knew his. It loomed around them like a stormy sea that no one else knew of, and they were each other's sanctuary. They were the only ones that truly understood. They were monsters, the both of them.

"Does it ever get any easier?" she whispered.

"It will," he replied, equally quiet. "It will."

As the years had flashed by, they had become closer. He understood her and she understood him with more depth than anyone else, and she could feel her own emotions mirrored in his. They were the same. Two of a kind. They always had been. Even when they were little more than strangers, she had been drawn to him even more than she had been drawn to her uncle. They were so similar that it was rather ridiculous, all things considered.

A weak chuckle escaped her.

"What a pair we make," she said.

She didn't see him smile, but she felt it.

"What a pair, indeed," he echoed.

They lay there for time beyond thought or care, when hours blurred and mind halted. They clung to each other as they tossed and turned in the sins of the past and the sins of the future, but by the time the fire had fallen to embers the two of them had succumbed to sleep.


End file.
